Triple C Coffee Cake

Triple C Coffee Cake (Cohen Coffee Cake) was originally posted March 2012. When my friend Coleen at The Redhead Baker told me that she was planning a 5 year blogiversary party, well, I figured it was the perfect occasion to update my pictures and create a video for Triple C Coffee Cake. I just wish that Coleen was here to pull up a chair and enjoy a slice, in person! Be sure to scroll down to the end of the page to see what my other blogging friends are bringing to the party and enter for a chance to win an Instant Pot as well as a $50 Amazon gift certificate. This is definitely going to be a fun party!

I woke up this morning craving a Triple C Coffee Cake and was very grateful that I had enough time to bake before leaving the house.

As I became mesmerized by the paddle of the mixer going round and round, my mind wandered to the name ‘coffee cake.’ I do not add coffee to my coffee cake and I, very rarely, drink coffee while enjoying a piece. So, this began to frustrate me, because here I was making a ‘coffee cake’ and its name just didn’t seem to fit – or so I thought.

Since Triple C Coffee Cake bakes for 70 minutes, I had the time to do a bit of research to get to the bottom of this. I found that coffee cakes, probably, originated in Northern or Central Europe during the 1600’s. As immigrants came to the United States, they brought with them their versions of a coffee cake and their recipes were, subsequently, passed down and tweaked throughout the generations that followed.

Additionally, ladies used to invite friends to their homes during the day for coffee and cake on a regular basis. This also contributed to the variety of coffee cakes that we now have, since very often the ladies wanted to have their own signature coffee cake and not merely a duplicate of someone else’s.

The cakes have evolved quite a bit from the yeast bread varieties to what they are today: sweet enticing cakes. They are sometimes made with yeast, but more often than not, they are made without.

When I sit down later to enjoy my version of a coffee cake, namely my Triple C Coffee Cake, I shall do so knowing that I learned something new today, which is always a good thing. Will I have my cake with a cup of coffee? No, that’s just not my style. I will merely savor each bite thinking of the generations before me that helped steer me to my very own version of their creation, many, many ‘coffee cake’ years ago.

Triple C Coffee Cake

5.0 from 1 reviews

Author: Betsy Cohen

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 70 mins

Total time: 1 hour 30 mins

Serves: 10-12

Ingredients

Nut mixture:
1 cup chopped pecans
⅓ cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Cake:
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
1¼ teaspoons baking powder
1¼ teaspoons baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1½ cups sour cream
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
confectioners sugar

Instructions

For the nut mixture:
Place the pecans, sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Stir together and set aside.
For the cake:
Preheat the oven to 350°.
Grease a 14 cup bundt pan and set aside.
Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.
Cream the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping the bowl as needed. Add the eggs, two at a time, and combine well. Alternatively, add ½ of the sour cream and then ½ of the flour mixture until it is all added in. Mix on low speed and scrape the bowl down with a spatula after each addition. Blend in the vanilla.
Spoon ⅓ of the batter around the bottom of the prepared pan, making a well with the back of a spoon. Sprinkle ¾ of the nut mixture over this, making sure that it does not touch the side of the pan. Top with the remaining batter. Sprinkle the remaining nut mixture over the top and gently press it into the batter.
Bake in a 350° oven for 70 minutes. Check the cake after 30 minutes and cover loosely with aluminum foil if it is getting too dark.
Cool on a rack in the pan for 10 minutes before turning it out onto another cooling rack. Do this over the sink or a piece of wax paper as some of the sugar/cinnamon mixture will drop off.
Dust with confectioners sugar once the cake is cool. This is delicious warm or at room temperature.

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Ready for even more wonderful recipes to celebrate Coleen’s party? DONE!